What adults need to know about the app their children love using.
The Brilliant Book Group
The book group, which is one of our citizenship groups, is starting again. We are planning to run a library club, decorate the library, do some book swaps, buy new books, and do something very exciting for world book day which is on the Thursday 3rd March. We are going to dress up as our favourite book character, we are also going to organise a lending library. We are going to make a suggestion box for the library as well.
Media Group Is Back With A Bang !!!!!!
The new and improved media group has new and improved ideas about how to improve our community and school. We have some great new ideas – News letters for parent, different sorts of blogs like internet safety and Port Ellen school movie.
The new media group will continue until the end of term and by the end of term we want t be successful by showing what we have achieved. We do this every Friday afternoon.
This media group is trying to get the community to know whats going in the school. We hope you enjoy seeing what the media group have achieved.
Crofting Group
One of our Citizenship Groups is Crofting. As crofters we are planning to grow trees, flowers and vegetables like potatoes, carrots, pumpkins and a few other things. We have five raised beds that we are going to use. We will need to prepare the beds before we start to plant our seeds. We are going to dig up the croft and plant lots of veggies. It is going to take a lot of work.
ENTERPRISE GROUP
The enterprise group are going to be making soaps this term to sell to places on Islay. In our group is Murray, Jack, Darren, Freya, Ruaraidh, Alexander and Charlie. Our slogan is we are soaptastic. We have a logo with a world on it. We want to experiment making different kinds of soaps. We will have our notice board completed. We will research and type up 5 key facts for our notice board. We will have a group photo.
Global Citizens
This is the Global Citizens. We are trying to make the world better to live in and trying to support Fair-trade and other charities. We will be trying to make money to donate to special charities that really need our help.We will be also be having a tea and coffee morning with Fair-trade food.
Fair-trade means trade between companies in developed countries and fair prices are paid to the producers.
By The Great Global Citizens:)
The Fantastic Eco Group
On Friday afternoons Port Ellen primary all do citizenships and one of the groups are called the Eco Group and the people that are in the Eco group are Holly, Abi, Kaya, Katie, Matthew, Rowan, Sophie and Harmony. What the Eco group do is we try and do litter picking to keep Port Ellen playground tidy. On some of the afternoons we do beach cleans to keep the beach clean and we are hoping to clean the pond, have an Eco day, plant flowers, tidy the round house, clean up the weeds and plant trees. Also our slogan is SAVE THE PLANET!
By The Fantastic Eco Group.
Swimming School Nationals
On Saturday 30th January I went to the swimming nationals in Tollcross. It was double the size of the local pool because Tollcross is 50 meters long and Bowmore is 25. Tollcross was built for the commonwealth games. There was about 1,500 people including spectators and swimmers. There was 10 lanes in the pool so it was 10 people in a race. I was swimming backstroke and the person in my race broke the Scottish record. I came 30th out of the whole of Scotland. We also got a swimming cap, a t shirt and a jumper as souvenirs.
by Ross Thompson
Writing Competition
P567 entered a writing competition around Argyll And Bute. We had to write a story based on a piece of art. The people who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd got books for a prize. After we wrote our essay, the people in our class voted to see whose essay was the best in our class. The people who had the most votes in our class got entered to the competition. I got entered to the competition and when the results for the competition got announced, I came joint second! I had so much fun writing it and I look forward to other writing competitions throughout the year! Read my story here https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ab/SAL/files/2016/01/JASMINE-MIDDLETON.pdf
The Fabulous Burns Day
On Monday 25th January 2016 all of Port Ellen Primary School had a wonderful ceilidh and Burns dinner. At 12 O’clock everybody in the school had a lovely Burns dinner and on the menu was mince and tatties or haggis, turnip and mashed potatoes. After the lovely lunch at 1.30 we had a Burns day ceilidh. At the ceilidh they had poem competitions, highland dancing, chanters, accordions, bagpipes and lots of Scottish dancing. For primary 1 the winner was Mya, for primary 2 the winner was Ciara, for primary 3 was Dearbhla, for primary 4 it was Ellen, primary 5 it was Rowan, for primary 6 it was Kaya and for primary 7 it was Bronagh. Everybody had a brilliant day and wished it had never ended.
5/6/7 TOPIC POETRY AND ABSTRACT ART
P567 have been doing a topic on Poetry and Abstract art. First, we looked at some abstract art online by famous artists. We said how we felt about them. Then, our teacher said that we could make our own abstract print and a poem to go with it. We all planned our poems and our print. I did Nightmares as my poem and I made a print with it. Afterwards, we planned a poem with at least 3 verses. We also learned about Kennings, Hakius and a few other poem sorts. We all made our own Kennings. We really enjoyed our topic very much. 
P5/6/7 Swimming Lessons
P5/6/7 go swimming on Tuesday mornings to get ourselves ready for our swimming gala. We learn how to do front crawl and how you take a breath. You do three strokes and tilt your head to the side and take a breath. We also learned how to float; you take a deep breath in and then go onto your front or your back. We also learned how to sink you take a deep breath and when you are under water let it all out and then close your mouth. That is what we do at swimming lessons.
Endeavour
This term is the time our class is really starting going with Endeavour. Endeavour is when you choose a topic to do by yourself and our class have written a letter to someone who could give us advice on our topic. Here is an example of our topics; Book writing, Card making, SSPCA, RAF and baking.
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My New Endeavour Project
Hi my name is Natalie and I am doing an Endeavour project, and I thought I would share it with the world. Endeavour is an independent project where you choose your own project and learn about it for eight months and in June we have a big fair and share our learning with friends and family. For my Endeavour I chose “Walks Around Islay.” I chose this project because there are ALOT of places on Islay I have never been, and I would like to find out some information/ history about Islay. So every so often I will share some information and history about place I have been on Islay.
The people that are able to help me are my family, Walk Islay and mainly people that would like to go for a walk or another place that they have been before or a new place.
I planed my project with my mum and we had a wee chat about something she would be able to help me with and we could go places together in the holidays.
At the end of my project I will have an Explorers Book, A Collage of photos and maybe a book of information.
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P1-3 Nativity
P1-3 enjoyed performing their nativity in St John’s Church, Port Ellen in front of a packed audience. They sang all their 8 songs and were also joined on stage by the Pre -5 and Nursery Unit.
The Fabulous Panto
The children of Port Ellen Primary School had a panto and P5/6/7 and part of P4 had most of the main parts but all the classes were on the stage at the end. The panto was called What a Knight and it was about the legend of King Aurthur. The main characters are Kitty and Watt Cobblers they are mother and son. They were played by Ruaraidh Macdonald And Eva Munro. It was on the 10th and the 11th of December 2015. There was also bad guys in it and they were the Black Knight and Ernie and Bernie Blackhead and they were evil. Then we had Princesses Alberta, Alfreda and Alice. Two of them dressed like princesses and the other one was like a peasant. And at the end we were singing with the audience Winter Wonderland and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. I really enjoyed it.
Muffins P5/6/7
P5/6/7 of Port Ellen primary school have been making muffins in their table groups. The table with the most profit wins. Here is what they made. One table made a mint icing Christmas tree with a chocolate sponge. The next table made Santa feet sticking out of the snow with an apple and cinnaman sponge. The next table made a snowman face with a red and vanilla sponge. And the final table used a star design with a chocolate orange flavoured sponge. Some tables spent more than others on there cakes and some tables can’t make a profit on how much they have spent. We did a taste test; first was the snow man, second was the tree, third was the star, and 
fourth was Santa feet.
Written by
Ross Thompson
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The Amazing Christmas Fair
The whole of Port Ellen Primary School will all help to setup the Christmas Fair on the 5th of December. There will be loads of cool creations to buy. P1/2 will be baking for the Christmas Fair, P3/4 will be making sweets and selling them and P5/6/7 will sell sock monsters, homeade calenders, mugs with hot chocolate,marshmallows,candy canes and also cans made into lanterns with holes that make constellations. There is a hamper with lots of biscuits, wine, chocolates, mince pies and lots of other brilliant things. Santa will also be there in his grotto and everybody is looking forward to buying loads of things. Come Along
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Understanding online shaming – a guide for parents
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It’s Amazing
As part of our orienteering training we made an amazing maze in the hall – we think the children will enjoy orienteering their way through this as much as we did!
Training Teachers
Lynn Walker from the Scottish Orienteering Association visited Port Ellen on the in-service day in Novemeber to train teachers how to teach orienteering. Everyone enjoyed the workshop – it was a lot of fun…..despite the rain!
Christmas video games without the surprises
Where to go for information on the video games your children will ask for this Christmas.
Bulimia nervosa: a parent’s guide
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